Spectre
Spectres are aberrations born of the psychic imprints left by a deceased person. Spectres are not ghosts in the traditional sense; they are not the persisting consciousness of a dead person. What they are is an echo of a dead person's final thoughts and feelings. Behavior Spectres roam the place where their original died, continuously acting out their final moments like a broken recording until disturbed by an outside presence. Beyond that, their behavior is dependent on their original's final feelings. If the original person died angry, bitter, or vengeful, they will be hostile and destructive to anything they encounter. If they died sad or terrified, the spectre will wail and cry and attack anyone unfortunate to come across them; a broken "kill or be killed" response from an entity trying to prevent a death that has already happened. Spectres born from a calm death, typically a sudden demise the original person did not have time to react to, are much less common, as spectres are most likely to be left behind by someone who had strong feelings about their death. Calm spectres simply go about their business and do not react to the presence of people intruding upon their place of death unless directly, purposefully interacted with. Occasionally, a spectre may inhabit (in other words, possess/haunt) something linked to their death, ie they were thrown in a dumpster upon death and now they ARE the dumpster, but this is uncommon. Personhood & Consciousness While they do hold the (incomplete) memories, preferences, and vague shape of the dead person they were born of, it is a mistake to approach a spectre assuming they are that person. While spectres do view themselves as their dead original (as much as they can view themselves at all with their limited consciousness, anyway) they are only an extrapolation based on the last moments of their life. Those last moments become a spectre's entire personality and demeanor, and any interactions the spectre as with a person will be based on those moments. If the most loving person in the world was pissed off when they died, the spectre acts as if that anger is their personality in its entirety and will be eternally pissed off. Spectre consciousness is extremely limited. Their ability to form new memories, self-reflect, and change their minds is temporary at best and nonexistent at worst. For example, if a murder victim believes that they were murdered by a specific person, their spectre will always believe this, even if faced with irrefutable evidence that the culprit was someone else. Any new information that challenges a load-bearing belief is met with either denial, violence, or refusal to acknowledge the information (they will act as if they cannot hear you because they literally cannot comprehend the new information). Even new neutral memories are quickly forgotten, typically lasting only several minutes to a few hours. There are rumors of individual exceptions to spectres' inability to form and keep new memories, but none have been confirmed scientifically. Physical Qualities Spectres typically appear as apparitions of blackened, crumbling skeletons surrounded by nauseating light. They are only inconsistently tangible; sometimes they might be completely immaterial, sometimes their "body" is touchable, and other times their "body" might not be touchable but their bones might be. Most of the time, they simply pass through walls and objects entirely. Being around a spectre for extended periods of time and/or at close proximity can cause nausea, headaches, and in extreme cases of exposure, hallucinations. If a spectre touches someone with violent intent, contact will cause injury akin to a chemical burn. Spectres only materialize at night or in places that are sufficiently dark during the day. Psionics are more likely to leave spectres behind when they die. Combating/Removing Spectres To remove the presence of an unwanted spectre, you have two options: fighting or waiting it out. Fighting a spectre isn't easy. In fact, it's impossible if you aren't a psionic. Because spectres are completely made up of psychic energy, psionics can pretty easily disrupt their core existence and destroy them. On the other hand, waiting it out is much, much harder, because there is no way of telling how long a spectre will "live." Spectres are seemingly just alive for as long as they feel the need to be, which can be a very, very long time. It could fade away 25 days after death, or it could fade 25 years after death. There is no way of knowing until it starts fading away. Category:Aberrations